By Scuba Lou
At the April 28 Planning and Zoning Commission hearing on ICE’s special use permit, Director of Economic and Community Development Trent Hyatt had good news for the commission: the facility at 100 Midland Avenue had passed inspection and been issued a certificate of occupancy. Everything was in order. Nothing to see here.
There was just one problem. The city’s own permit records tell a completely different story.
The active building permit for 100 Midland Avenue shows the project at a whopping 6% completion. Building Review (Commercial) failed on April 22, 2026, six days before Hyatt stood before the commission and described a facility in compliance. A new review isn’t scheduled until May 7, two days from today. There is no certificate of occupancy.
The city’s pre-hearing staff report, which Hyatt oversaw, told commissioners the property had passed its follow-up inspection on April 9 and a CO had been issued. That was the foundation for staff’s recommendation to keep the permit in place. Then the permit database, again, the city’s own system, shows a failed building review two weeks later and a project that is 94% incomplete.
So either Trent Hyatt didn’t check the city’s own records before testifying to the commission, or he did and told them something different anyway. Neither option is great.
Also: It’s Not Even Classified Correctly. While we’re in the permit records, there’s another detail worth mentioning. The building is classified as B: Office, Professional. Not I-3, which is what the International Building Code requires for any facility where people are held under restraint and cannot freely leave. You know. Like a detention facility. Where people are held in handcuffs. And cannot leave.
Under the IBC, that is an I-3 occupancy, full stop. The city has known this building was operating as a detention center for over twenty years and has allowed it to sit in the permit system as an office building this entire time. An office building is not designed or built to hold people against their will. The fire suppression requirements are different. The egress requirements are different. The structural standards are different.
But sure. Office building. Totally fine.
This is not the first time information about this facility has been incomplete, contradicted, or quietly walked back. The missing CO was called an administrative oversight. Now there’s a failed inspection that apparently didn’t make it into Hyatt’s presentation to the commission.
At some point the pattern of conveniently incomplete information stops being explainable as bureaucratic fumbling. The question isn’t just whether the city made mistakes. The question is what they knew, when they knew it, and what they decided the commission didn’t need to hear.
The commission voted 5-1 to revoke the permit anyway. The community saw through it. But Hyatt and city staff still owe the public a straight answer: why does the permit record directly contradict what you told the commission on April 28?
What are you trying to hide?
Check out the impressive research that the people of Glenwood Springs have put together on this important issue: Community Defense Alert | Linktree
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